I have a multi-track highway grade crossing and I am trying to determine where the crossbucks should be place. My double track mainline diverges into three tracks heading into the passenger depot and the road crosses these three tracks just inside the throat. There is also a diverging branch line which crosses the road about 30 scale feet from the mainline tracks and there is also a diverging track off the branch which is a lead to the turntable. This is a little more than 30 scale feet from the branch. That gives me five tracks total that the highway must cross. The branch will typically run 4 trains a day in each direction for a total of 8 crossings of the road which means the locos must be turned 4 times a day, each time crossing the highway. Should I place crossbucks at both the branch line and the mainline or should a single crossbuck handle all five tracks. Cars stopping at either the turntable lead or the branchline would not be able to see mainline trains approaching the crossing.
Crossbucks are a temporary solution. Eventually I want to place crossing flashers but again, where should I place these. Should I place the flashers at the mainline and use just crossbucks for the branch and turntable lead or should the flashers protect all 5 tracks?
Probably warning signs at the outermost tracks with a sign saying its for 5 tracks.
If the two tracks are 30 ft apart, if you figure that the clearance point for traffic is 9-10 ft from the centerline of the tracks That leaves 10-12 ft between signs. Unless everybody in your towns drive motorcycles, Smart cars or Segways, that’s not enough room to stop a car lear of a one crossing without fouling the the other.
Put the signs at the outside and keep vehicles out of all the crossings.
Yeah, what Dave said. The sophistication of the crossings’ protection would be dependent upon the volume of traffic (rail and road) as well as the era.
I have reviewed more than 1,000 grade-crossing designs. I have never seen one built that was not as per Dave H. states. It is one crossing, five tracks as they are not sufficiently separate for a vehicle queue in between. If protected with active warning devices (bells, flashers, gates), the entire crossing is within one single set of devices.
If it’s a major street, a Federal or State highway route or the only way from the fire hall to the fire, an expen$ive overpa$$ might be justified. If it’s just a local street, used by locals going about their business, it should have flashers and gates. If it’s a minor street half way between two other streets that also cross the tracks, maybe what it needs are some concrete barriers and Dead End signs.
Actually, I did give that one some thought but the TT lead is too close to the edge of the layout for the road to return grade level and I’ve never liked the look of an elevated roadway that terminates at the edge of the layout. It just seems to stand out and to me it is distracting.
A better solution would be an underpass but that would require some major surgery to the bench work. The branchline TT was an afterthought. Originally the plan was to install a wye. This extended the crossing more than the original plan. I might opt to do that some day but right now, I have too many other projects on the plate that are more pressing. My HO drivers will just have to be careful when crossing the five tracks.
To add to what Dave Husman said, depending on the period you model it could be appropriate for the railroad to employ crossing watchmen for such a busy crossing. You’d still have the crossbucks, but also a shelter (shanty) beside the roadway on each side of the railroad’s right of way, and a couple of figures carrying “STOP” signs on poles.
The next step up from that might be manually controlled gates, with an elevated gateman’s tower placed to oversee the entire crossing.
Both these forms of crossing protection were used into the 1950s, at least.
Thanks, Andy. That’s good information. I’d thought of the watchman’s shanty but wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate for my 1956 layout. I think my LHS has the Walthers built-up in stock and in the colors I have chosen for other structures on my layout.
I am curious how these watchmen knew of an oncoming train. We’re they required to keep a constant lookout in both directions or would they receive a signal to alert them. In my case, many of the crossing trains would be pulling away from the passenger depot.
Right from the start of this thread I’ve been wondering about how much and when/where Engineers would blow for this crossing and/or how much loco bells would be used. It seems to me that this would also be made more complicated by the proximity of the passenger depot… plus the turntable would have a similar effect wouldn’t it?
In far off years I have worked much more simple level crossings (grade crossings). Some were worked on a timed basis - once you knew that the train had left the tower it was coming from you waited x minutes, closed the road (with gates or barriers) and then cleared the protecting signals. Others were worked by the train hitting a treadle or track circuit that triggered a warning bell which told me to close the road. I would guess that simple crossings in the USA with crossing keepers and/or towers were worked pretty much the same way.
The practical problem isn’t so much when there are a lot of movements close together - you just have to pay attention and deal with each train as it comes - the awkward bit is when you have a long break between trains and you want to warm up / dry out / have some food. That’s when you need to have your ears tuned in… out in the country your ears can be pretty good (provided there isn’t a strong wind in the wrong direction) but in a city or industrial area there are other noise problems.
The real complication here seems to be the to-and-fro nature of some moves and the closeness of the approach.
Another issue with multiple tracks is several movements at the same time (not so bad) or right up close
The B&O went through Chester PA at street level with at least five road crossings protected by watchmen. There were some ground level shanties and a couple of the elevated gateman’s towers. There were crossings both east and west of the passenger station. This arrangement lasted at least until the end of passenger service in 1958.
Conrail (former PRSL) had a watchman-protected road crossing (ground level shanty) near Woodbury NJ that lasted through the 1970s, although IIRC it was manned only on weekdays.
There was a crossing in Lansdale PA (former RDG) protected by a gateman in an elevated tower into the 1980s and possibly the early 1990s. Supposedly it was one of the last ones in the US.
Some shanties had bells (sometimes called annunciators) activated by track circuits, to alert the watchman of the approach of a train.
This has all been fascinating stuff. Things you wouldn’t even think about until you try to replicate them in model form. Thanks to all for the contributions to this thread. Something that at first glance seems so simple has so many issues to deal with. For a fleeting moment today, I actually took a hard look at retrofitting an underpass to alleviate this problem but for now, I have decided against that. The short term solution I think is to go with a watchmen’s shanty with the idea of eventually replacing it with flashers and maybe even operating gates. Unfortunately, the hardware to do all of that is rather pricey. I estimated it could easily cost upward of $200 for one crossing to fully automate the flashers and the gates. In addition to those items, you would need some type of train detecting system for 5 tracks going in both directions and a Tortise or similar device to operate the gates. Two hundo is probably a conservative estimate. Maybe this is all overkill. After all, in the model world, you don’t really have to worry about a grade crossing collision. On the other hand, if you want to do things realistically, these are issues that need to be addressed. Given the price tag, I think I can live with a watchman’s shanty for quite a while.
Engines are required to ring the bell trhough the crossing. They blow the horn about a 1/4 mile before the crossing (about 20 secs). The exact distance is marked by signs and varies by the speed of the track.
Not really. They just have to blow before they occupy the crossing.
I don’t know that any crossing system in the US has a warning to the train. The only way a watchman could stop the to train is to flag it, just like anybody would stop a train. I rather doubt they would. It would require them to leave their post and go one or two miles down the track (in each direction).
Probably not.
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I have also known a couple of places where freight trains would wait short of a crossing. Two things were done here - (1)with a manual system there would be a bell system for the crew to remind me that they were there / right at the crossing (and sometimes for me to “wake up” the crew). (2) with an auto system there would be an arrangement for the Engineer to tell the system that he was right at the protecting signal so the system should ignore any approach time and close t
Just to help with the whistle requirements. Approaching public crossing at grade start signal at least 15 seconds but no more than 20 seconds before the crossing. If movement exceeds 59 mph start signal at crossing sign or not more than 1/4 mile before.Prolong or repeat until engine occupies crossing. Thats how GCOR reads and with teh FRA being a royal pain we blow till the whole motor is in the crossing anymore.
Originally a crossing shanty would be just a small shack near the crossing, usually manned by a former train service employee who had been injured and couldn’t work as a brakeman / fireman / etc. Later elevated shanties came along, which gave the employee a better look down the track, but also meant he had to climb up and down to operate the manual gates or wave the red flag or hold up the STOP sign. Then came pneumatic gates which could be pumped down from the elevated shanty, then electric gates. By the time the electric gates came along, it was pretty easy to wire them up for automagic operation so by about 1960 crossings with manned shanties were becoming pretty rare.
With this arrangement, a modeler need not pay for/install automatic detection equipment. Instead, a simple manual switch could be used to control the gates, etc.
The crossing signal configuration at Lansdale*, Pennsylvania is different enough - and now, perhaps unique, in that there are 2 independent sets of crossing signals - from what’s been observed and recommended above that I thought it might be fun and of interest to describe it in more detail. It is basically similar to what jecorbett is describing for his layout, except that there is no turntable lead, so there are only 4 tracks at the grade crossing of PA Route 63 = Main St. in the middle of town, 1 block northwest of the Broad St. intersection.
[*Named for Phillip Lansdale Fox, the Chief Surveyor for the North Pennsylvania Railroad, a predecesor or subsidiary of the Reading Railroad; now SEPTA’s R-5 commuter ‘Regional Rail’ line.]
Coming up from Philadelphia - Lansdale is about 22 miles north-northwest of center city - after crossing said Broad St., the Doylestown Branch diverges by a right-hand turnout from the rightmost of the 2 mainline tracks. Just after that, another track diverges back to the left from the Doylestown Branch’s track to become another station track, and roughly parallels the 2 main tracks, but at a wider track center spacing - about 20 foot centers where they cross Main St.- so as to provide space for an inter-track platform in front of the station building just a little further to the north. Meanwhile, the Doylestown Branch continues to curve to the right, so that by the time it crosses Main St., it is at about 45 to 50 ft. centers from the above-mentioned 3rd station track.
Paul – thanks for pointing out an interesting and unusual situation. But you’ve whetted my appetite for photos. Can you come up with a link on the pennpilot site or someone else?
PennPilot doesn’t support links to specific locations, as far as I know. Best I can suggest for the moment is starting from the initial map-style ‘Road’ view, then simply to zoom in on the northern Philadelphia suburbs until Lansdale shows up, then continue to zoom in until you find the location. Then click on ‘Aerial’ view to get closer, or simply go directly to ‘Bird’s eye’ view. Once you find it and zoom in as much as possible, then rotate - using the control at the upper left - a couple times until the view you like best shows up.
But I’m going to keep looking. I’m surprised that I wasn’t able to find anything such a busy and public site on RailPictures.net. I know there’s a Yahoo! group on that area and operation, but I’m not a member and I don’t want to reference something that’s not generally available. So I’ll keep looking - if all else fails, I’ll retrieve a CD with some photos I shot in the snow there one March day about 4 years ago - but I really wasn’t going for the crossing gates that day. If all else really, really, fails, then I’ll go visit my sister - she’s about 5 miles further south. Will get back to you on this.
As an aside, RWM - I’m beginning to think that you and I live in 2 parallel but different railroad ‘universes’. We seem to each keep coming up with aspects of the business that the other one has never seen or heard of - but which is the norm for the other one. This is at least the 3rd time in recent months . . .
